Within the next eight weeks, more than 10,000 employees and contractors of the Tennessee Valley Authority will have to be vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus unless they have a religious objection to such vaccines.
TVA said it is following the rules for all federal employees to receive the coronavirus vaccine by Nov. 22 unless workers are able to establish a religious objection to such vaccines. Although TVA is an independent federal corporation governed by its own board of directors, TVA President Jeff Lyash said TVA determined it was covered by the federal mandate and must begin enforcing the new rules by the week of Thanksgiving.
Lyash said TVA will offer incentives to workers to encourage those who are not yet vaccinated to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“This lowers our lost productivity and lowers our medical costs so we can share that back with our employees,” Lyash said. “How will we deal with people who elect not to be vaccinated? We haven’t worked all that detail out yet, but we wanted to let our people know this [vaccine mandate] was coming and now we’ll collaborate with our workers and fill in the details.”
Similar vaccine mandates have led workers to quit their jobs at other employers rather than get the vaccine.